Who is Britannia?
We only ask because it seems that she will shortly be disappearing from the nation’s pockets. In April Britain’s coins are undergoing a radical design overhaul, and the stern lady and her lion (and her olive branch, trident and shield) will no longer appear on 50p pieces. It will be the first time she has not appeared on British currency since 1672, when Charles II provided the head to her tail. In fact, she had already been pressed into monetary use under Hadrian (117-138AD), who, in stamping the figure of a war-like woman on a coin, made a goddess of what had previously been an idea and a place: Britanniae was the collective Roman term for what is now England, Ireland and Scotland; by the time Julius Caesar arrived, it applied only to England. Disappointingly, the goddess Britannia, though beautiful and gloriously be-helmeted (often clutching spear and shield, sometimes seated on a globe), doesn’t seem to have been provided with much backstory – Boudicca, one can’t help feeling, woul
